


Mental Carnage

by WickedDecay



Category: Arkham Origins - Fandom, Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Arkham has several basements, Bruce wayne isn't here anymore, Genetic Splicing, Heavy gore, M/M, Mutated Batman, Project Cadmus, maybe a series, playing god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 10:32:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18589462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedDecay/pseuds/WickedDecay
Summary: Arkham has always been swimming in secrets, that shallow pool far deeper than you could ever imagine. At the fall of the superheroes, Cadmus their merciless executioner, Waller spared but one of the thousands they murdered in cold blood. Now, he lurks and grows in the shadow of what she left behind, his mind splintered and fractured in the aftermath of what she rot.





	Mental Carnage

**Author's Note:**

> Characters:  
> \- Bruce Wayne, Batman - Leader  
> \- Joker, Jack Napier – chemical expert, punisher, agile combatant  
> \- Harvey Dent, TwoFace – Driver, Second in command, punisher, marksmen  
> \- Edward Nashton, Riddler or Enigma – Tech, mind control, traps  
> \- Jonathan Crane, Scarecrow – Crowd control  
> \- Waylon Jones, Killer Croc – Muscle, tracker
> 
> Notes:  
> \- Cadmus funds Arkham, which had been rebuild on the island, larger and with far more levels and sections. The island is half original, the rest was manmade and now accommodates BlackGate Prison convinces and any from what Cadmus has acquired.  
> \- Gordon is also alive but will not go near Arkham since Batman suddenly disappeared.  
> \- Kirk Langstrom, as well as several others, modified Batman but was killed shortly afterwards.  
> \- Arkham now only hold patients and tortures and finally kills them between the third and tenth level, the other two are for show with less mentally unstable patients.  
> \- The ninth, tenth and eleventh levels are open for the convicts to roam around and are sealed off so that the more stable doctors do not get pulled down.  
> \- The patients are free to eat and devour whoever isn’t strong enough to survive on their own.
> 
> Floors:  
> MA - Main Attraction – Lobby, garden, pool, rooms for the doctors and offices,  
> A1 - Accommodations 1 – for patients,  
> H - Hospital – obviously what it says,  
> A2 - Accommodations 2 – for patients,  
> C - Canteen – Food and playroom,  
> B - Brig – Holding cells for those that do not listen, also a torture area where they can test new experiments,  
> G - Generators – Main power, Boiler room and air ducts to all of Arkham Asylum,  
> NG - Neutral Ground – vacant of anything and anyone, was sealed off in case of break out, is storage mostly,  
> HC - Hostile Corridor – full of extra rooms, now a zone where inmates fight,  
> MC - Mental Carnage – Rooms, Lobby, Gym and cafeteria, was supposed to be an extra section but was sealed off for obvious reasons,  
> MC - Mental Carnage – Boiler room, separate from the rest of Arkham, only the last three floors,
> 
> Pairings: Hinted Batman/Joker...
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing…

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Chapter 1  
Nothing but lies

Lies.

It was nothing but a lie.

A fat, fictitious, smear that not even a chronic liar or a shameless manipulator could effectively smile away.

It was that kind of lie that would stain and rot the teeth, leaving nothing but a gapping slobbering mouth with a wet tongue flapping against inflamed gums.

This was the end-all truth, the core, of Arkham.

But the joke of it all was that they ignored the rotting dental and slippery tongue in favour of an idealistic world. A reality untainted by the grey that promised to splinter, to shatter, the very foundations, the concepts of black and white.

Grey was change, good or bad was irrelevant, but it was the dawn approaching an old age and like the rising sun and falling moon, it could not be stopped.

But to the people, to humanity, it could be masqueraded and slowed down, even if the act itself was an illusion.

It was an arrow piercing through the heart with only a sharp whistle as warning, but all were not ready to look the shooter in the eyes, to find him amongst the crowds of sick and suppressed. They rather believed in a fluke, a higher power choosing from a design that was too almighty and eternal, mysterious; to ever make sense to the human mind.

Burying their head in the sand of denial was far simpler and posed less of a struggle.

As long as the world continued to spin round and round, not a soul gave a second glance at the encroaching monster slinking up their driveway.

Gotham was the worst in this regard, mainly for its blood soaked history layered with the bones of the utterly twisted and the painfully pure. She had seen such horrendous acts that the constant fighting, alleys slicked up red and discarded body parts were a normal sight, her people wise yet ignorant.

Her offspring were gifted with knowledge of the darker side of life, how nothing could or would ever be perfect because that was not how the world functioned. Darkness was just as important of element to the world they called home, promising continued movement and survival. Their only down fall was arrogance, pointing the blame elsewhere and ignoring the signs.

The fall of the Dark Knight was one such time, another lie having convince them otherwise of the true origin of their protector’s alliance.

They turned snarling, ugly mugs towards the fallen bat, broken and bleeding, shoving the mutilated body into the arms of the creature that had showed them lies she professed to be true. All his kind were taken into her arms as the hefty woman took her leave, flanked by an armada that world had never heard off, yet it was a name they would never forget.

Cadmus.

All the sick where horded into the asylums, barred up behind steel and concrete, rimmed with barbed wire and electrical persuasion. Cocooned away, far away from civilization, they were bound to islands, but a dot on the shores of the mayor cities that had been spurned by them countless times over.

And there they would remain, Cadmus leading the young and blind by the hand into a world that was free of bloody baggage and sick minds. A world of peace and promise.

But that was another lie.

Waller, the roaring lioness of Cadmus, head and voice, took the heroes she valued above all else and put the others to death. Several villains, were given the same fate, strapped down like dogs and approached with a needle that could chill the life from their eyes. 

To those she took, vicious and immoral experiments were used, her ultimate goal to have the brightest and most promising under her thumb like listless lapdogs. Many died but not a soul outside would ever be the wiser, stuck in a dream that they had wished for since the dawn of man.

Peace.

But this peace was the brief calm before the storm, for not that all the titans, good and bad, had been taken away. The juveniles, young and full of unexplored rebellion, had time now to crawl from their dwellings and spread new undefined wings. Fights broke out across the globe and soon, two years after the great cleanse, they were right back where they had started.

The circle rounded again, circling throats as they screamed in anguish and despair.

Cadmus was shut down when the people came for them, the head of the monster gone with only the institutions to proclaim her legacy. Those whom survived were placed in secret, far below under dirt and stone and steel.

It was in her most prized asylum where she hide her greatest treasure. In Arkham, her revenge for those that had betrayed her would come to pass and rise from the depths like a dragon from the grave of its raided trove. The one she feared the most, would come to her rescue and forever make the world suffer for its betrayal.

But that was another lie.

Or perhaps, an unfounded dream when she considered digging her own grave.

Bruce refused to be a toy for her enjoyment.

Shrouded in darkness he creeped down catacombs slicked with the slim and filth of thousands that had lost their lives to the pit, the very core and purpose of Arkham. It was here, stories below the surface did the ugly face of Arkham show itself, hidden but always watching.

Flickering lights offered little comfort, exposing the gore that was pressed against the placid walls that stretched for miles. Bone clicked against his sharpened claws, scattering across the slicked tiles, rolling like dice till he loomed over them again. Cables were strung haphazardly across the ceilings, dipping down like dead weight and sometimes even struggling the life of a patient that had run, frenzied, into their snares.

A few were still strung up like trophies, rotting and oozing pus as they melted into themselves. The desperate amongst them would eat from their bones, polishing them off, missing limbs proved this fact.

The corridors were too narrow for him now, his body heavily altered by Waller’s hand and imagination, as well as the eager assistance of a man whom she believed, was the ideal man for the job. The irony made Bruce almost want to laugh, the whispers of the deranged doctor still filtering through the synapse regardless of steel will.

Kirk had been such a weak, fraught little man.

The Man-Bat.

It was beyond satisfying to squeeze the life from the older man’s body, watching and vengeful as his organ crushed like grapes beneath his clawed fingers. 

However, with his babbling and psychotic spittle snuffed out within a blink of an eye, a red smear on the linoleum floor, the gravity of reality now had all the space necessary to overwhelm the Bat. Nothing could defuse its profound presence now, especially when the poor once human looked within the broken shards of a discarded mirror.

Now, Wayne truly was an embodiment of a monster, the dragon in which Amanda Waller had envisioned. Her own personal guard that would keep all knights of the round table, or any other kingdom for that matter, from her scared tower.

A bloated body deflated as Bruce squeezed by, his bulk causing the corpse to smear across the wall before going slack and falling apart. Now only his torso was twisted in wires, the rest was a melted pool of blood and guts on rotting tile floors. The beast shuttered in disgust as he felt the slime, cold and wet, roll over his sides, a remainder of what he was.

But Batman would not bend to her will, no matter how twisted she had made him, the body he had been forced to accept.

His wings shifted, claws scraping the sides of the walls in irritation, her face smeared across his subconscious, screaming at him to come for her, howling for sweet revenge. But it was not her selfish retribution the once guardian hungered, which was the fault of her own ignorance.

Did she actually believe he would come to her aid?

The very idea.

Every muscle, every tendon, in his enormous frame twitched at her memory, convulsing, hoping to vomit the dirty scar Waller had imprinted away. But those scars were far too deep, profound, inked like a tattoo across his brain in a sketchy scrawl that threatened to consume him. He could never rid Amanda’s imprint from his soul. Bruce was doomed to be haunted by her ghost till he crossed the gap and he was a fool to believe otherwise.

It would be a lie to himself and he hadn’t the strength, nor resolve, to continue this masochistic deception anymore.

However, there was other way to cope, his imagination turning a grotesque red, spurred by the violence he had seen and endured. He could imagine her demise and he would, because it would come to pass.

It was not a lie.

Images of that disturbing fat face, mangled in a horrifying scream pleased his heart and soul, picturing her disbelief as Bruce invaded her nest to gut her from throat to crotch.

When he finally did, of course, the only thing left to do was to devour her bones, fat and all.

After all, burning her lies would never stop the rambling, forever voicing his insanity like some maniac’s last symphony.

It was only once you pointed the muzzle of a shotgun at the maniac’s head and pulled the trigger, did the senseless, illogical drabble cease.

Bruce chomped his maw in anticipation, his memory reeling and jerking back, sputtering a cloud of collective accounts, his heart hammering in his long pointed ears. Her over radiant perfume, something she wore to rid the funk of death from her person, whom be the very thing to guide him to her. The abused and shaken mind of his could never hope to forget that flowery pungent smell. It haunted him almost as deeply as Amanda’s ugly face.

He could taste the disgusting order, his nostril flaring with delight, as if she was here, hiding frightened and alone in the darkness she had thrust him into.

His mind buckled at the idea and he went still, the chill of understanding, the anticipation of finally cornering her stealing his thoughts away. A predatory chill, something that had guided his senses when he would hunt the scum of Gotham in the dead of night, curled delightfully at the base of his skull.

It hissed and seeped upward, towards his cerebellum and into the rest of his grey matter.

Alone.

His mind echoed the idea, parroting the sound with a twisted curl of promised and hunger.

Alone.

His heart hammered as he pictured her fat body splitting open, spilled her lies and guts for the world to see. All the red bleeding out before him, a hole between this world and the next, reflecting his own madness back at him.

Alone.

Red would ink out her eyes by the time he was finished, tears of all she had tortured in the name of some sick promise to the world, a false reality.

Alone.

There would be no escape.

Nowhere for her to run now.

We will find her.

MAKE HER SUFFER!

Ecstasy smeared in blood and gore shattered through his subconscious and his body when rigid as he let the sensations unravel and congeal like clotted blood within his thoughts.

A tittering of laughter caused the murdering red to leak from his eyes and Batman frowned, seeing a slender shape move with calculated grace under a lamp down the hall. 

But a stone’s throw away, the light continued to flicker, distorting the darkness and the shape but the once great detective knew whom it was. Pasty white flesh and a gory red smile, stretching long and wide to its owner’s eyes, bulged and manic, were all the billionaire needed. His nervous jitters and shaking was also a clue, shuddering against an unseen wind that rattled the very core of the interloper’s sanity.

His soul convulsed at the sight, the murdering whispers quieting down, all the violence sucked back up through his pores like a sponge would to water.

The creature cooed and slandered over, his flesh so pale veins and arteries were plainly visible, especially around his neck and hands. His acidic green hair, wet and matted to his skull, slicked back with years of grease and sweat. Heavy bags rimmed his eyes like dead weights, contrasting sharply against the red that was gradually dominating the whites of his eyes, which were a sinister electric green.

Emerald eyes, looked up at the bat dragon with awe, hunched over and begging, snickering with joy and urgency. Bare feet splashed in the crimson puddles, stained red from the wear and the coloured environment.

Bruce allowed him near, craning his massive head back to avoid being pulled down by needy claws. 

The little imp was all hands now, less talking and taunting, more grabbing and clutching, as if his own madness was giving way and he was desperate to find another vice to cling onto. The ex-billionaire growled, the sound fluttering impressive jowls but the clown only increased his pace, slinking up to the stalwart chest and clutching at it with the vigour of a dying man.

“I’ve been looking for you…” he breathed, rubbing raw hands over short black fur. The harlequin’s nails were broken from his incessant biting; a habit that sometimes caused him to teethe on his lower lip. “I thought you had left me…”

The straightjacket was a battered mess with a missing sleeve and torn belt buckles but the Joker never seemed to care. The pristine white of the suit was a distant memory for happier days, now coloured grey with smears of blood. The clown had flung his person at his arch-nemesis the very moment Waller had imprisoned Batman to the very pit of Arkham. He could remember being barely conscious, armed men pushing him out of the elevator and hurriedly closing the doors. A well-constructed muzzle of steel had kept his roaring mouth of teeth shut and far easier to transport.

Joker had been the first face he saw.

Folds of white skin were pulled tightly into a frown, the markup smeared haphazardly over his lips, a red splatter. There had been worry, or at least that’s what the Batman presumed he saw. However, after dealing with the clown for a year and a half before Amanda found him, one would hardly associate such a word with an individual like the Clown Prince of Crime.

Yet his demise never came, the Joker having his arch-enemy weak and groggy, full of bullet holes from when he had had enough of Waller’s heckling and had charged for her with maw open wide. Her men had made him suffer for his reckless savagery; even to this day the Bat was sure the clown had missed a few lead slugs somewhere along his flanks.

Bruce had asked, leaning against a small stack of bones, flopped over on his side and the murderer of thousands crouched between his front legs. He was cutting with a jagged fragment of bone, forcing a slug from the fleshy place it had come to rest. 

Joker only laughed, giggling away as he craved the thick layer of skin back. It took several more minutes of egging before the harlequin finally choked up an answer. But it was something Bruce had not been ready to hear.

‘We were meant to be together,’ he sang, examining another slug the size of his thumb before tossing it aside, ‘to reap the world for what rightfully belongs to us.’

For days till the Bat Beast could find the strength to move his bulk of a body, the jester’s answer never changed. Even as logic struggled against the lunacy, Bruce finally able to beat the murderous creature away, Joker did not leave. He lingered like a memory Batman wished would burn, refusing to part from something that his universe was permanently affixed too.

Wherever Bruce ventured, the Joker followed, either up close or within ear shot, slinking around the labyrinth, like a hyena looking for prey. Sometimes the world upstairs would be generous and toss scraps down to the hell pit, but other times, drastic measure were necessary.

Cannibalism was the primary core of life down at the lowest floor of Arkham and there was always an abundance. For if a patient refused to obey, or simply could not endure the trials, they were banished, doomed to haunt the halls or die. It had taken a year before Bruce had consented to devouring human flesh, refusing to let any of more of his humanity go, but there was only so long it could survive in such a desolate world like the pit.

Especially with nothing to eat.

Aside from the rare moments where the surface dwellers would drop piles of food into the pit, there were cans scattered round within what used to be the mess hall for this portion of Arkham. Many inmates within the pit hadn’t the strength or brains or even tools to open the tins, besides beating them against the wall. His claws helped him much during these times. However, there were only so many…

The longer Joker shoved a chunk of some poor bastards flank into his face, the more he was tempted to sink his teeth into the gore.

Inevitably, instinct to survive won out and the two started to hunt.

It became a game, like those Bruce had seen with common day predators. One would act as the shepherd, forcing the running lunatics down certain corridors and towards his camouflaged partner, waiting with baited breath for the strike.

The whooping laughter always assured Batman of the approaching kill. That cackling rattle that had at one time been a scare tactic and had haunted his nightmares, had changed. Now it had become a blessing and a sound of comfort. Its different pitches and tones conveyed what the clown saw right down to his emotional state, preparing the beast for was or will travel his way. Bruce responded with growls and roars, his cries rattling the very heart of Arkham.

Speaking, he later decided, was useless now, his own spiralling grasp of reality dangling off the edge. Why continue to masquerade as something he would never be again? 

He wasn’t human after all, why cling to a lie?

His howls to the dark chilled the inmates that were strong enough to linger, keeping well out of his way as they scurried from one side of the prison to the other. It gave him a twisted sense of accomplishment, his grasp of fear and how to use it infinitely more affective as he was now.

Perhaps he owned Man-Bat some thanks.

His heart splintered under a squeeze of emotion and he roared, the clown curling deeper into his skin, chortling and heaving for air as the vibrations rattled through him.

No.

He owned no one anything.

“You’re voice makes clicks…clicking…you’re irritated…” came a murmured hiss from his left, that pointed face nestled into the tight folds of muscle.

Bruce was dimly aware of the drool running down his arm as he craned that massive face to look down at the scrawny creature.

His behavior was far from what Bruce could remember facing two years ago, the jester going through a similar metamorphosis parallel to his own yet, different. Batman was not stupid, his own mind which he had to strengthen and fortify in order to clash with the distorted of a city, had to be impenetrable, with no hope of splintering.

But being trapped in this hell, this Dante’s Inferno, had done something no villain had ever been able to realize.

Bruce was becoming what he feared, a monster, now finally flipping over the edge that separated the common folk from people like the Joker. He was falling deeper into the blackened abyss but he found, day by day, crawling in this murky world with no sunlight or hope, he cared less and less.

What he used to be no longer mattered.

No doubt his parents were fuming over his life choices beyond their graves, regardless of his original motivations and the thousands of the people whom he had saved. There was no point in turning back to a life style that promised nothing but misery and loneliness.

He had only ever lived a lie and money was the biggest fibber of them all, able to camouflage and twist into whatever it chose. It was without restriction and the Wayne heir had used and abused it in order to keep both halves of his person alive.

But now, he no longer cared.

The Clown Prince was also spiralling deeper right alongside him, but at a different speed. His jokes and jibs had slowed down and instead of putting distance between him and any other sentient being, he was closing the gap. He was regressing, withdrawing into himself. Instead of being independent and a force uncontrolled by anything or one, he was becoming increasing dependent on the Bat.

Sometimes the clown would cry, something Bruce was assured he had forgot how to do. Other times, Joker would stare unblinkingly at the Bat, as if he feared the vigilante would miraculously disappear. When they would slink back to the section they had claimed for themselves, a raided room full of mattresses soaked in blood, the criminal would curl into the Bat’s arms, leeching onto the side of his neck.

If Wayne tried to remove him, the clown would holler and buck, gripping into the flesh so desperately it would bleed.

A sick part of Batman enjoyed the attention. 

How the little imp would do anything in his power to make the Bat-Beast happy, even if it meant physical harm. Only Alfred had ever gone out of his way like that. No one else had ever bothered, or persisted, to try and crack their way through his enhanced defences.

After all, Bruce had shared nothing but lies with the world, a masquerade to fool the wandering populous.

Batman had lied to himself, trying to prove that he had been dreamed up rather than born the day of his parents’ murder. That he was not in fact the real persona in charge of the over abused body.

It had taken years to perfect his lying and to shield others away from the truth that terrified him in the darkest moments of his own thoughts. Yet he spilled his secrets to the one whom he had hated more than anything this world could vomit in his path. After all, that sad truth was, no one knew him better.

Bruce liked the pain he could inflict upon the jester, for he would come back, grinning and tittering, asking for more. He was the only constant thing in Bruce’s life now, the only relic of the past that had not changed, but then again.

That was another lie.

They had changed, turned into something darker or at least he had. Now he understood, as he listened to the monster ramble on, whispering and laughing, that his hopes had freeing Gotham were impossible. He had been so desperate to help, so blinded by his need to guaranty a more prominent course for his life to follow, to erase evil from this city so sick that he had missed the signs in his haste. He just wanted to prove that his life had a meaning, that he wasn’t some flesh bag that would eventually rot and leave nothing but bone till time too had erased even that.

Funny how the mentally unfit were more qualified to understand the world for what it was, then those deemed sane.

The irony was sickening.

But not nearly as revolting as the lie.

ALL THESE LIES!

“Couldn’t leave me, could you Batsy? We are destined to be like this…skin tight.” The jester patted the skin, scraping his frayed nails across the blackened canvas as he shuddered. “Intertwined, forever fated to be together…never parted.”

Now, Batman understood.

Gotham did not want to be saved, she wanted to drown in her own filth and the Dark Knight was done wiping away the grim and gore, inevitably lashed at for even hoping for a cure her insanity. She refused his hand and tore it off with jagged fangs, her people turning away in disgust regardless of the good he had done.

All he had done, just for them.

Just. For. Them.

For them.

FOR THEM!

If that was the way they wanted it, so…be…it.

In that sense, Batman could give Waller credit where it was due. She was right about the heroes inevitably turning on the masses, just as Superman did, which brought his apocalypse upon the world. That all the good they did, was overshadowed by the destruction that dogged tirelessly after their efforts. That they did as much harm as good and that most of the world’s problems stemmed from the Justice League’s existence.

All she had done was push, moved the impending cataclysm moment closer to home.

She had just enlightened them faster.

Even through his anger and dissolving sanity, he could at least thank her for that, for opening his eyes to the truth he thought he had seen clearly and understood.

But she would still die.

Joker keened deeply as he rubbed himself against the Bat’s forearm, his lanky arms barely fitting around the muscle coiled there. His Bat’s silence was bothering him, it left him vulnerable to the other sounds that haunted this hell. The deafening ringing of the electric cables overhead, was by far the worst, like static to the mind that was racing at break neck speeds. The drone was a scalpel slicing off layers of skin from the forehead, slowly, carefully, reaching the skull and then the brain.

It made his fingers itch.

The harlequin pulled at the thick scuff of fur around the Bat’s neck, whimpering loudly for attention. But the beast was adrift in his own thoughts, pulled undertow and was sinking, deaf to the clown’s voice and touch. Frustrated, the jester moved and grasped that snout, pulling it down to run slender fingers over flaring nostrils, white teeth flashing. Massive blue eyes, cold as the glaciers to the north and filled with hatred gradually refaced and Joker pressed his lips against that nose in bliss, finally acquiring the Bat’s attention. He mouthed against his nose with delirious affection, rambling about movement within the pit, all bodies flooding towards the food court. Needy hands moved again to the dense cuff of pelt and pulled, attempting to tug his once enemy down the hall.

Bruce looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see through the layers of steel and concrete. It seemed the ones that dwelled on the surface were going to feed them today. It disappointed him some, he had grown rather fond of the hunt.

Snorting, smoke twirling out his nostrils, Batman moved at a calm pace down the corridor, winding down several turns and loops before finally entering the mess hall. Joker followed as he always did, carefully picking his way through the discarded bodies on the ground, twirling and tip-toeing, prancing like a deer through a field.

As they stepped through the threshold, a pair of massive swinging doors forever hanging off broken hinges, Bruce looked around, recognizing many faces.

It was an enormous room, even more so that all the chairs and tables had been haphazardly pushed aside, some inmates had made forts with them. When they had first arrived, all had been hesitant to leave the room that was the only source of food, especially since it was the only chamber that possessed a constant stream of artificial light. However, when time showed that the intervals in which they were feed was random and far in between, they eventually scattered and preyed on one another. Like the rest of the pit, the walls were smeared with blood and frantic text, the muddling mind of mad creatures exposed in writing. The walls were grey, paint peeling back like apple skins and many of the ceiling’s tiles had been dislodged. There was a bathroom, to the far right, but it was dark, like the door frame was a portal to a world of only darkness.

The truly askew ventured there, the rest left them well enough alone.

The buffet counter was also in a horrible state of disrepair and was permanently tattooed with the funk of rot and disease. Sullied trays were filled with blobs of expired food, some even holding mangled arms and legs. But this is not where they were gathered.

Towards the left was a small elevator shaft, to which the surface dwellers would drop piles of whatever they had on standby into the pit before hastily pulling the lift back up.

Away from the filth of insanity and mania.

Joker whooped as he dashed towards the group already congealing around the small door, many of the weak parting far away from his clawed reach. This was the only time they did not try and eat each other, but once it was all said and done, the rules would come back into play.

Familiar faces watched and approached the Bat, their leader, a small pack of the most formidable forming within the pit. Bruce growled as they approached and barked, watching with delight as they staggered and bowed like dogs to their master. The weaker mass also flinched under the impressive sound, some pressing themselves tight against the opposing wall.

Joker only coed as gears wrenched, grinding hard against one another, steel on steel and the crowd gathered closer. The cart was slowly dropping down to their level, the spell of peace had been cast and now they knew that the fellow inmates would keep chomping mouths to themselves.

Eager for food, some whined and scratched at the cold surface, tracing the scars from previous endeavours. Others howled like ravenous wolves and banged against the door, the strong light exposing the filthy and misshapen from countless experiments. The Bat observed them, as he had so many times before, his pack flanking his sides, TwoFace and Joker closer than the rest.

He looked at their filthy revolting bodies and wondered what shape he was in, if there were embossing scars tracing his face and back.

Riddler, his hands twitching without the reassuring feel of his cane, lingered closer to the binary ex-district attorney. Crane, twitchy and whispering so softy Bruce had to strain his ears to hear, moved closer to the Bat’s rear. He knew Bruce would push his way through the bulk of the masses and save him scraps, he just had to be patient. Croc was at the front, long tail wagging, scales cracked and dry, ready to shove the stragglers aside at the Batman’s command.

Gradually, they had come to rely on him, differences put aside in hopes of surviving the hell that was the pit. Now they were the biggest pack in Arkham, dominating the lowest floor with an iron rule. But, even they still lived in Arkham’s influence, under Waller’s authority that put them there.

Amanda Waller.

You will avenge me, Bruce.

Never.

He bristled and Harvey looked cautiously at him whilst the clown pirouetted under the waves of anger.

Bruce stared at the door with determination and felt something splinter within him, that dark voice that was neither Batman nor Bruce curling snuggly in his ear. It was talking, murmuring like a deranged fool Batman knew they were.

He was going to get out of here.

The Dark Knight looked to his comrades, his pack, his family and made a vow, unmoving as the door slid open and raw meat poured out from the duct, a few vegetables rolling along dirty tiles. They stared back, a look of understanding and promise twisting their mugs and Croc roared, barreling through the masses, tossing them away like flies.

After all, Waller needed to pay before time took her and Gotham needed to understand the repercussions of biting the hand that feeds.

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This is supposed to be a fairly large project that I started years ago but completely forgot about. If it is well received, I will consider continuing it. If not, it will remain as one chapter and nothing more. Please let me know if it considered note worthy enough to continue.

I hope you enjoyed <3


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